Mandalorians Don't Cry
by Arkatrine
Summary: He was the toughest, he was the coldest. It was inevitable though, it happened to everyone. But no one expected it to happen, not to him at least.


This takes place in the Star Wars game Knights of the Old Republic the ship Ebon Hawk after Revan and Canderous Ordo confront Jagi on Tatooine. This is also after everyone finds out that the PC is Revan for the sheer fact that my PC's name was stupid.

Disclaimer: I own the characters of KotOR not.

**Mandalorians Don't Cry**

Revan threw her robes in the trash can, frustrated. After nearly two weeks of relentless scrubbing, soaking, and drying she just couldn't seem to remove the sand from them. She was certainly glad to be done with Tatooine, seeing as nobody seemed to be able to handle another trip to the desert planet.

It wasn't that they didn't like it; no, they just didn't like the things that conspired there. Bastila's mother, Mission's brother, HK-47's previous master Yuka Laka, Canderous' incident with the other Mandalorian Jagi…

Out of all the things that happened on Tatooine, from Sith to sunburn, Jagi had to be the worst. Of everything she had done for the people of her crew that had to be the hardest to handle. Seeing a man kill himself to save himself from being dishonored, to see such a look of pain, of utter horror, on Canderous' face—a man who had killed, murdered, and maimed thoughtlessly his entire life—it was more than just upsetting.

When they encountered Jagi on Dantooine, before Malak bombed it, he claimed that Canderous had abandoned Jagi and others in a battle years before, said that he left them to die. Revan couldn't remember the details, it was too confusing. Jagi eventually challenged Canderous though, challenged him to a duel in the deserts of Tatooine.

_I've been given a challenge I can't ignore. We've got to go to the dune seas of Tatooine so I can find Jagi and kill him for his insult to me! The sooner we get to Tatooine the better._

That's all he told her, he wouldn't answer any questions, simply telling her it was between him and Jagi. At first she refused to go to Tatooine, staying on Dantooine to help more of the farmers there until he told her what it was about. He didn't take that very well. She then offered to go to Tatooine if he just took her to the duel with him. He didn't take _that_ well either. So, through excessive amounts of shouting, threatening, waving around weapons, hitting, and being downright mean to each other, they finally reached a bargain.

Revan would go with him into the desert, but she would not participate in the fight. It was simple, and it made sense. Canderous seemed to think of nothing but spreading Jagi across the desert while they were on their way to meet him in the desert.

Once they had met him, and a few friends of his, he said Canderous left them to die, for no other reason than to gain personal honor. Somewhere in their arguments, Jagi saw that what Canderous had done saved more people than killed, he had seen the error he had made in questioning Canderous' honor, and for this error he took his own life.

Canderous wouldn't talk about it. He asked her to give him time, give him space. And she did, she didn't talk to him more than she needed to, she didn't ask him for any more war stories, she kept her distance from him. She didn't need to ask the crew to keep their distance from him; they did that on their own already. Canderous was never popular among them. Revan could only handle him being like this for so long though, and two weeks was enough.

"Canderous?" she asked quietly. "How are you?" He didn't look well, huddled against the wall next to the work bench. He looked ill.

"This thing with Jagi... I... I don't know. Give me some time and I'll be able to sort this out on my own." He muttered almost to himself.

"You said that two weeks ago Canderous."

"Two weeks isn't long enough."

"Then what is? What is long enough for you?" He looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time in days. _Nothing,_ is what they told her. _Nothing is long enough._

"I'm…I'm not happy with the way my life has turned. I'm not the Mandalorian I once was. I don't even think I'm the mercenary I was when I joined you. I think... I think I need something more than killing and fighting in my life…I…" He shuddered slightly. For a moment Revan thought he was choking, and then the impossible happened. Canderous Ordo, famed Mandalorian, murderer, mercenary, killer, assassin, started to cry.

Revan didn't know what to do. Bad things happened, especially in war, people broke down, and some went crazy. Not Mandalorians, war was what they lived for, what they died for, what they were _born_ for. Mandalorians don't break down, and they most certainly didn't cry. But there he was, weeping as a mother did for a son who didn't come home, as a child who realized they no longer had a father.

She couldn't do anything but hold him, hold him in her arms even though he was nearly twice her size, hold him and tell him it would be alright, even if she knew it wasn't. She held him like a wife held her husband when his best friend died, she held him like she loved him. She told him that it was alright to cry, even though most Mandalorians didn't.


End file.
